Self Sufficiency

Self Sufficiency at Risk

Power consolidation is not sustainable.

Backyard permaculture mushroom farming is complex but doable if you know how.

Capital-intensive technology is consolidating power, transferring the control of our food from farmers to mega-agribusinesses. Of course, I am typing on a laptop, so I am also at the mercy of tech, in this case, Apple and Microsoft. But, as with everything, we must find the balance of tech and self-sufficiency in order to maintain control over our lives. 

Long-term yield stability and sustainable intensification depends on the five sources of sustainable capital: financial, natural, physical, social, human (Garnett, 2013). Let’s just look at financial and human capital.

In the short term, farmers make more money using genetically modified (GM) seeds, says Dr. Timothy Griffin (Lecture, 2015). (If you check my post "Listen to those with their hands in the dirt", you'll see that this may not be true.) But for that questionable gain, they lose their control over seed production and price. Farmers who buy their seed from Monsanto and can’t save their seed due to patents, are now beholden to Monsanto. 93% of soy and 80% of corn grown in the US are from Monsanto patented seeds. 1,676 seed, plant and other agricultural patents are owned by Monsanto (Food and Water Watch, 2013). GM seeds may look good right now but when Monsanto raises its prices beyond the reach of any given farmer, to whom and where does that farmer go?

Farm hands and students picking potatoes at Jericho Settlers Farm, Jericho, Vermont. 

Additionally, as technology increases, human capital and, the resulting knowledge of practices boosting self-sufficiency and farmer control, decreases. Not only are farmer laborers replaced by technology (and I am thankful for both my laptop and my washing machine so I say this carefully), but Griffin points out that farmers are “deskilling” because of their reliance on technology.  If technology fails, Grifiin says, farmers won’t have the institutional memory or the skill set of historical farming methods. They are also paying large sums to support this technology and energy supplies to fuel it, costs which are not controlled by farmers. 

Griffin T. Food production and agriculture. From Farm to Fork lecture. Harvard Extension School. October 7, 2015.

Garnett, T. Appleby MC, Balmford A, et al. Sustainable intensification in agriculture: premises and policies. Science; 341:33-34. 2013.

Food And Water Watch. 2013. https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/monsanto-corporate-profile

Food Secured

Abundance.

As I wondered at the plethora of apples we have in Vermont this year while checking out the enormous ancient apple tree at the bottom right of my field still bursting forth with succulent crisp apples, I thought about the food abundance we have, the inefficiencies we have on our landscapes, and the impact our insatiable consumption has on global food insecurity.

To support the inefficiency of our food waste, the land base in the US alone is 7 to 8 times greater than it needs to be (West, Gerber et al, 2014). Referring to the effect of our insatiability on the world’s climate and, in turn, its negative effect on arable land, weather patterns, and nutrition content of food, Meyers and Bernstein find that “Never before have the consumption patterns of those in wealthy countries of the world played such an important role in putting the health of the poor at greater risk,” (Meyers, Bernstein, 2011) We consume— or at least purchase, ingest a fraction, and throw the rest away—energy and land intensive food at a great rate.

We have the opportunity to turn a piece of this around in our own backyards. If we took the time, money, and acreage, no matter how small, spent greening our lawns and pruning our shrubs and applied it to a bit of vegetable or meat growing land, we could help to abate food shortages elsewhere.

Leading by example, and maybe shaming us, the Helen Keller Homestead food production project has implemented and is supporting a system of household vegetable gardens for families in Bangladesh, a country of far less means than ours (Paarlberg, 2013). If we, as citizens of a prosperous and developed country, grew and consumed food from our own backyards, would there be more food for others in less privileged countries?  We might still waste our own food, but at least we'd free up land to grow food for countries in need. Certainly, it’s not as hard as growing potatoes on Mars. (See Matt damon as Mark Watney succeed in what is purportedly impossible in The Martian. Fun movie, if questionably accurate.)

To look at this selfishly, if we spent just some of the money, effort, and space that we do on our lawns on growing food for ourselves and our neighbors, what would the impact on us, a society riddled with obesity, depression, and addiction? We would be moving our bodies, connecting with the earth, communicating with our neighbors, eating locally grown and maybe organic food fresh out of the garden, and valuing it—for most anyone who grows food treasures the fruits from the labor! Vegetables, movement, and community are widely known to be critical to human health. Additionally, we could come close to zeroing out food transportation. A plus for climate change!

The math.

I grow enough vegetables for a family of four for July through December and do all the gardening work myself. Family and friends help with storage. If I just accounted for my labor it would be about 8 hours a week during the peak season (End of April through June, and September through October) and I am a fairly meticulous farmer so this labor number could be reduced. To be generous, let’s say 18 weeks at 8 hours, or 144 hrs. When the garden is settled in, July and August, I spend maybe two hours a week weeding and picking. 8 weeks at 2 hours equals 16 hours. I also have perennial food on my land: fruit trees, berry bushes, and asparagus. Oh, the wonders of asparagus! These take care but, not too much. Add a few hours on a few weekends for the care, spring and fall, and summer and fall picking, so add an hour a weekend throughout the 6 month season, 24 to 26 hours. 144 + 16 + 26 = 186 hours or four and a half weeks of labor. Not bad considering I’ve also moved my body a lot, enjoyed the sunshine, reduced grocery trips to a minimum, and pay little for organic, nutrient rich produce on my dinner (and breakfast and lunch) plate.

(There is an inverse relationship between higher yields and yield quality. Dr. Timothy Griffin points out that organic strawberries have a higher nutrient value because there is a lower yield. “It’s a matter of dilution,” Griffin says, (Lecture, 2015)).

View fullsize

But back to abundance and money. While the apple trees litter the dirt roads of Vermont and pile up in streams, I put my garden “to bed” for the winter. I always cover the mulched rows with straw. That requires taking the pickup to my local Agway or other farm and yard store and picking up straw grown in Canada for $10 per bale. Last fall, I had used my own leaves over a few of the rows and this spring I found a much more active worm life and lovely, crumbly, deep black soil. In contrast, under the straw it was rocky and gray. Few worms. Leaves are in my own backyard. Abundantly. I will use leaves this year and save $200. If given the chance, farmers do what costs them the least. And that may be abundance right in their own "back yards" And that may be abundance right in their own "back yards”—hometowns or nearby cities if, for example, food waste were composted. 

In a lecture on chemical exposures in our food supply, Dr. Gary Adamkiewicz spoke about arsenic used in the 1980s showing up in the rice we eat today (Lecture, Oct 14, 2015). I wonder, of the technologies that interfere with natural processes that we are using today, what will be the long-term effects? Are the genetically engineered agricultural products employed today akin to the harmful pesticides from decades ago? Can we take the time to test the impact of technologies that change natural processes over multiple generations and meanwhile, use the slow technology of our minds and muscles to spending a few weekend hours growing our own?

It’s a big learning curve. It’s dirty. And sometimes the bugs bite in that tender spot where your shirt lifts up above your shorts. Sigh. But we are re-skilling in one of the five basic needs of human life: growing our own food. Not too shabby. And, when we grow too much to even store for winter months, we can share it with neighbors, give it to food banks, or toss it in the compost to create next year’s fertile soil. Nothing wasted. 

Griffin T. Food production and agriculture. From Farm to Fork lecture. Harvard Extension School. October 7, 2015.

Garnett, T. Appleby MC, Balmford A, et al. Sustainable intensification in agriculture: premises and policies. Science; 341:33-34. 2013.

Paarlberg R. Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know. London: Oxford University Press, 2013.

West et al. Leverage points for improving global food security and the environment. Science 2012; DOI: 10.1126/science. 1246067.

Meyers SS, Bernstein A. The coming health crisis. The Scientist 2011; 25 (1);32-37.

Food And Water Watch. 2013. https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/monsanto-corporate-profile

Adamkiewicz G. Chemical exposures in our food supply: pesticides and beyond. From Farm to Fork lecture. Harvard Extension School. October 14, 2015.

Hands in The Dirt

Listen to Those with Their Hands in The Dirt

If we are to base our arguments regarding conventional versus alternative farming (I dislike those terms as it roots the former in tradition and stigmatizes the latter as unstable and fringy when in fact it is a far older practice) on books and lecturers alone*, we need to know from whence our information comes, whether it is legitimate, and who is funding it.

The genetically modified (GM) foods lobby is as much a political and money driven campaign as it is science.

Framing the argument as science versus emotion discredits the years of study by concerned scientists who have made legitimate discoveries that put GM seeds and conventional farming practices into question. I was disconcerted by Dr. Paarlberg's scene setting of, as Mr. Squalli put it so aptly, "two opposing camps" consisting of "a group of objective scientists or pro-science defending conventional farming and a group of activists (perhaps depicted as emotional and anti-science) calling for alternative farming." (Let’s not forget that Dr. Paarlberg is on the council to the CEO of Monsanto (Sourcewatch)). At the end of Mike Gibney's chapter Modified Food: Genetic or Atomic (Gibney, 2012) found in our reading this week, he writes that, "emotion is what drives the anti-GM lobby,” delegitimizing honest scientific research.

This is exactly what the “merchants of doubt” or “high-level scientists with extensive political connections” (Conway, Oreskes 2011) want to do: “run effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge.”

We need long-term investigation and research to understand the effects of newly developed seeds and products before implementation. This is not emotional. It is common sense.

Gibney, who writes off the anti-GM lobby as emotional, describes a safety measure for farmers who buy and plant Bt corn (genetically modified to contain the pesticidal toxin-producing Bacillus thuringiensis gene). “Farmers who buy GM seeds,” Gibney writes, “must sign a contract that they will create small insect refuges at strategic locations around the GM crop.” He argues that the progeny of any resistant “weevil” will have very few resistant weevil mates as so many weevils had the luck to dine on non-GM corn in the refuges. The very, very few resistant weevil progeny who do survive and procreate, he writes, will not survive after dining on the GM corn; thus no resistant strain of weevil.

His argument may not be emotional. But it's naïve. Really naïve. Any good journalist would have done a little more digging. First, let's clear this up: Bt corn was created mostly to combat the root worm, not a weevil. Brandon Keim (Keim, 2014) writes about the Bt corn resistant root worm discovered in 2009, years before Gibney’s book which he could have reported, due to a few glitches in the creation of insect refuges.

It all started with the undermining of insect refuges.” An advisory panel convened in 2002 by the EPA suggested that a full 50 percent of each corn farmer’s fields be devoted to…non-Bt refuges,” (Keim, 2014). Yet, seed companies resisted and eventually the EPA did too. The EPA set voluntary refuge guidelines between 5 and 20 percent of farmer’s fields. “Many farmers didn’t even follow those recommendations,” Keim writes. By 2011, Aaron Gassmann, an Iowa State University entomologist and co-author of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and other field scientists and farmers reported widespread extensive root worm damage to Bt corn fields in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota.

Ironically, Bt resistant root-worms could now force farmers to use and pay for pesticides undermining the economic rationale for creating Bt corn.

Economical? I don’t think so, especially when developing a GM seed can cost well over $100 million (Union of Concerned Scientists).

Shouldn’t we be questioning what drives the pro-GM lobby?

*On this matter, thanks to Jay Squalli and other organic farmers as well as field scientists, observation or hard labor on the ground may provide us with observed truth more than the abstractions from those who keep their hands soil free.

Gibney, M. Something to Chew On: Challenging Controversies in Food and Health. University College Dublin Press 2012.

Conway, E., Oreskes, N. Merchants of Doubt. Bloomsbury Publishing 2011.  http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org

Keim, B. Voracious Worm Evolves to Eat Biotech Corn Engineered to Kill It. http://www.wired.com/2014/03/rootworm-resistance-bt-corn/ Wired 2014.

Union of Concerned Scientists. Marginalizing Alternatives: 8 Ways Monsanto Fails at Sustainable Agriculture, http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/marginalizing-alternatives.html#.VgtQaHhlDOR